Code Living

  Who wants to listen to someone who changes his or her mind for every whim? How can we trust people who say one thing and do something else? Is there any way to believe someone when we don't know what they believe and watch them stand up for it?  The answers are no one. We can't. And no.

 We all tend to want to live without rules, or at least outside of them in some way. But how can we ever really live this way? To wander with no moral compass, no thought to rules, laws, ethics, or God whatsoever only leaves us lost. Just because that is the way we are prone to be, has no bearing on the fact that we cannot and should not live that way, because it is so far from what God has desired for us. We are supposed to be law-abiding people. Strange? It is sort of surprising, I'll admit. Yet, it's the only thing that makes sense in light of what happens to us, our families, our countries, our cultures when we undermine laws, morals, and rules.

  Every journalist must also have guidelines and rules to hold himself accountable to, otherwise, how can he be trusted? How do you really believe, respect, rely on someone who doesn't have a standard they follow? How do you know what that standard is?

 If you are in the business of sharing truth with others, you are making yourself accountable to your audience that you will tell the truth. If you claim to tell the truth, you are claiming to be honest, trustworthy, ethical. So you must clarify how you will and must be ethical. Write a code.

  No. I don't mean something cryptic. Establish a code of ethics for yourself, and share it with your audience. This will help them keep you accountable. This will help them trust you. This will help you learn and become more reliable. And, as a journalist, shouldn't that be our aim? To grow in knowledge and truthfulness in every step of the way?

 This journalist - or at least aspiring one - therefore puts forward my own code of ethics:

Code of ethics 

1.    No stealing ~ Mainly, do not take credit for another's work. It is rather simple, do not take or claim anything that does not belong to you.
2.    No lying ~ This has to do with having others believe someone else's work is your own. However, it also extends to altering images, quotes, etc. to make it appear different than the original intent or event. Basically, do not be deceptive in any of the work you do.
3.    Be respectful of other people ~ Be gracious and thoughtful of others' feelings and rights. Share the truth, yet with grace. Be aware and concerned for your sources as well as your audience.
4.    Be honest and comprehensive ~ Do not present opinions without clarifying that they are such. Give more than one side of an issue to be objective and acknowledge the fact that everyone is biased in some way. Write in a way that will not be confusing to your audience, or will be least confusing.
5.   Always be truthful ~ This applies to every point already listed, but it should always be reiterated. Journalists must first and fore-mostly tell the truth. They must avoid situations that will cause people to question their integrity. They must show respect to all, but be very careful and clear when they show favoritism to any. 

   I did use some of the guidelines from https://nppa.org/code_of_ethics and http://www.journalismdegree.com/ethics/, as well as ideas from the course. They are not especially obvious though, and no quotes were used.

Wisdom from the past...

What more needs to be said? 

Ethics = Morals = God

   There is no doubt in most persons' minds that ethics and morals are complementary to each other. Something in our minds pushes us to feel guilty when we steal or lie, then we have to convince ourselves it was fine or seek restitution for what we did. This is called conscience: having morals, for some strange reason, embedded in our minds and hearts. We can easily ignore them. Yet that is what creates all of the evil, misery, and confusion in our world, throwing away what we know is right. Throwing away truth. And, I must add my own bias, throwing away the Giver of truth: God.

   If morals, conscience, ethics seem to live buried in each of us, then it follows that we all must need to follow them in some way, we simply choose not to do so. And in continually choosing to ignore morals, it becomes harder and harder to know what is truly ethical and how to be that way. We become confused when we are presented with dilemmas such as telling the truth to a friend's parent and our parents when the friend has done something wrong. Keeping the secret for the friend would preserve your relationship for a while, but undoubtedly both would begin to lose trust in each other. If someone is willing to lie for you, who's to say they aren't going to lie to you. Both friends would have violated their consciences. They did not really treat others the way they want to be treated. They are being unethical. The only ethical way to go about this dilemma is to be willing to lose a friend in order to do what's moral and right. You must tell you friend's parents and your own.


   It is not only in personal ways that we must live ethically and morally. We must all live and work treating others the way we would want to be treated. Journalism is no exception. Respecting other persons and their requests in your reporting, being objective by presenting others with both sides of an issue, giving others the credit they are due, and most essentially, reporting truthfully are all examples of being ethical. In what? Journalism.


   Truly there is no major gap in the ethical and moral guidelines that journalists must follow and other people should follow. Those guidelines listed apply to everyone, really. However, when you are in the business of informing the world about the truth, it is profoundly important. A journalist's job is to be ethical, to be a truth pro-claimer. It is no easy or flippant task. Yet, it is deeply rewarding.


  I used the guidelines from this site to help me see the ways journalist are to be ethical: http://www.journalismdegree.com/ethics/ . In order to give credit where it is due, the author's name is only listed as Jason.

"If you can..."

During public speaking class, I memorized and recited this poem. Having these challenges in your head changes so much of the way you live, talk, and behave. I still go back to this knowledge and wonder how anyone can be mature, but each of us must keep trying anyways. Through Christ, we can most certainly strive to be men and women. Not children as the world strives to be, but mature men and women of God.

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All the world's our page.

  No matter what type of news outlet you give me, I will find something I like about it. I love being informed. I love learning truth, even when it pierces. Wanting to know about what is around me, the people around me, it is immensely important. Why is it that I'm so fascinated by it? Is it simply an American thing? Could it be that, perhaps, I am a journalist at heart? I pray so.

 As it turns out, one of the most fundamental forms of news is my favorite. Newspapers have provided outlets for the journalists and inlets for a hungry world for centuries. That is, so long are literate. They provided both the first national, international, and local means for staying informed. Though they began with much confusion between their opinion, bias, and facts, newspapers still provided much more trustworthy news than word-of-mouth, often. And, journalists continue to comb and refine their papers to make them slowly, but steadily more honest and intriguing.

 Magazines, journals and such are at once distinct and similar to newspapers in many ways. They provide a similar type of news, meaning you have to read to know what's going on, and they are not produced as frequent as radio and TV broadcasts or Internet news. However, magazines are something with more depth and sometimes more entertainment than their predecessors, newspapers. Magazines and journals are also rather like books, they are written to be something to read over again, which makes them unique from every other sort of journalism.

  With electricity, many doors opened for discovery, invention, and even journalism as radio finally made an entrance. Radio news is obviously different from all written forms of news because you see and read nothing, the whole idea depends on the effectiveness of the broadcaster or journalist's voice and vocal portrayal of the news. This is not really a new or distant idea though. Word-of-mouth honestly was the first form of being informed and radio simply expands and works to make credible this form of news. Basically, radio goes back to where all of our news outlets started. 

 Television news has to be my least favorite way to stay informed. While it provides visual, audio, and sometimes reading for the viewer, it does not allow the same viewer to have much choice in what they have to see. For those who like to slowly process what they have just been exposed to, it also doesn't allow for that. In short, TV has combined many of the older news forms to give the world a quick overview of events, people, etc. It is helpful, true. I simply prefer the old-fashioned way.

 Lastly is the grand finale of all journalism and news, the Internet...At least for now ;). All of the the benefits and negativeness of all of the news forms we have ever had are now up-loaded online for everyone to pick over and decide what they want. Blogs and websites dump even more information, whether credible or not, into the news stream. Now every one's confused! Their is much room to be mislead by all of this information, their is much reason to be wary and do you're research and analyzing.  But, despite all, Internet news is probably the most useful and helpful news form in all history. Journalism is growing, and hopefully truthfulness too, through this world-wide display of the news.

   Finally, all the world's our page. Anyone and everyone can read from it. So be certain to be sharing the truth from your page, where ever and however it may be.

What about TV journalism?

   How do I keep ending up interested in the left-leaning news reporting? Oh, wait....It's right leaning this time! I promise, I'm not trying to be an instigator, it's just intriguing to hear both sides. At the same time, it is frustrating to hear both sides. They are clever, both the right and left understand that we like the controversial, strange, or flashy news. As some have said "Good news is no news." So they give us what we like. But in the midst of that, we are quietly pushed to think what they think, or see a very different picture than the real one.

 Truthfully, CBSN news presents what they choose to present rather honestly, making sure there are at least two opinions of a story in their broadcast. They may not be forthright with those opinions, but looking carefully, you can tell they are present. Over an hour of their news program I was informed on numerous types of news: weather, political, economic/stocks, entertainment, disaster. But what one showed the bias of the reporters and the CBSN news station, do you think? If you thought political, you're correct.

 You see, things like the weather, sports, business, entertainment, we generate our own opinions about each of those things, and they are important to us in our daily lives to some degree. But politics stands apart. It has it's foundation in what we believe and how we live. Our opinions about who should run our country and how they should do it, that extends to our beliefs on what is moral. Basically, it extends deep into our hearts and minds. That's why politics becomes such a battle-ground. We're supporting what we believe in, whether we see it that way or not.

 All that to say, the hour of news I viewed was plastered with discussion about Donald Trump's boycott of the last Republican GOP debate before the primaries. Repeatedly, as they discussed why he would skip the debate and whether it would effect him in the presidential race, the news reporters showed negative leaning clips of Trump and shows mocking him. Statements such as, "There has not been the scrutiny for Donald Trump as the front-runner as the front-runner has historically had." Or simply using negative words to talk about his boycott, "I am very confident if he[Trump] was five points lower he wouldn't be bailing."

 Between this onslaught of Trump news, the reporters talked about the Democratic race, giving a good portion of the time to a Bernie Sanders supporter. In fact, they did so well presenting Hillary, Sanders, and the other candidates that I had to do some research to check on whether they are liberal or not. It seems the overall view is that they are right-leaning, plus they allow Republican advertisements for Rubio, Cruz, and others, but they don't seem to like Mr. Trump in the least.

 Sadly, it is understandable that they would make fun of Trump. He can be laughable and ridiculous , that is my bias at least, and I get why they would use Trump to get people's attention.  However, that is by no means the way journalism should be. It is the kind of business that is protected by our Constitution to promote the truth, not ridicule or serve as entertainment primarily. We may have more news now, but I don't know if I can honestly say it's as fair and truthful as we like to think. Keep on your guard. There is much to learn, hear, and see, but there is also ways to be mislead in all our learning.